Was the Throne of Guardianship Ever Vacant?
Mason Remey left Haifa at the end of October, 1959, and went into “self-banished exile” (Spataro, p.31) to Washington, D.C. Remey had agreed with the hands that if they would follow everything Shoghi Effendi laid out in his plans for 1963, he would go along with them. Shoghi Effendi’s plan for the IBC, of which Remey was president, was that it would become a world court in 1963, and eventually it would blossom into the UHJ. However, in 1959, the hands called for the election of a new IBC in 1961. Thereupon, Remey decided to leave the hands, in spite of their imploring that he stay, since he believed they had no authority to put anyone out of office who had been put there by Shoghi Effendi. This was an affront Remey could not endure. Joel Marangella holds that it was not until Remey left Haifa that early in 1960, he finally saw how he was the second guardian of the Baha’i faith: It was not until the end of His two-and-a-half year Period in Haifa and actually after his depar...
